Three Things That Never Happened To Gabriel Engel
by Varia Lectio
Summary: ANTIBODIESAntikörper fanfiction. Alternate universe. The roads not taken in the life of Gabriel Engel, the infamous 'Dark Angel' of Berlin... Rated for violence and disturbing themes that involve children.


**Three Things That Never Happened To Gabriel Engel **

**Rating and Warning: **A fairly hard R, for violence, mentions of rape, and general Engel-related nastiness. A strong warning for mentions of suicide and child molestation.

**Summary: **The roads not taken in the life of Gabriel Engel.

**Author's Note: **The "Schmitz" of the last story is indeed Schmitz...or an alternate version of the Schmitz who got blown away by Engel in the movie. So I guess that this is really three things that never happened to Engel, and one thing that never happened to Schmitz. Heh. Oh, and the idea for the last story came from this review of "Antibodies", wherein the characters, the actors, and their respective roles are mixed up, with hilarious results. http:// www. musicomh. com/films/ antibodies1106. htm Enjoy.

**One: Death **

He feels the concrete under his belly growing slick with blood. He can smell it, sharp and fresh, along with the rain and oil of the streets and the sweat on his skin. He has a good nose for smells and always has, and his work gives him an even greater sensitivity to the scent of blood. He enjoys it.

But not this. He is badly wounded...and worse yet, he knows it. Glass grits under him, tearing his skin in a hundred places, each more sensitive than the next, and there is something torn and broken inside of him that swells with pain when he takes a breath. Agony pulses inside his stomach, sharp as the scalpel he had used to dispatch his last victim.

_My final victim. _He is coming to the realization that the boy will be his last, and that disappoints him. He keeps crawling, not knowing where he is going or why he is expending the effort. His vision is narrowing to a dark, red-tinged tunnel, and it would be so easy to close his eyes...

Something hard and sharp, thrust into his stomach, catches on the rough concrete and pulls up and wiggles inside of him, tearing. He gasps and stops moving, overwhelmed. Others would have cried out and sobbed at the pain, but he is too proud to do so; he has not cried in many years. Even alone, even dying, he will not give in to weakness.

Blood comes up; he spits it out. He rolls over, grasps the thing sticking out of him, and pulls. The agony is so intense that tears do come to his eyes, in spite of everything. Death is making him break his vow, and he hates it for that.

He opens his eyes and looks at what he's holding. It shines, red and clear, in the city's lights. A long shard of glass, wet with his blood.

Feebly, he raises it to his lips, licks it, then lets go. It clatters to the ground and snaps in half.

The police find him there a while later, but too late for both them and him. Gabriel Engel is dead, due to blood loss and massive internal bleeding.

**Two: Life **

_The gift of life...a precious thing. Supposedly. _He lies still, and considers.

The poison was defective, and he curses the guard he bribed for it. He does not know if it was a deliberate act of sabotage or a simple miscalculation of the dose; for all he knows, the poison wasn't even the right one.

It has done its damage, however. He feels so weak he can hardly lift a finger, and can barely speak. His kidneys are laboring and will probably fail soon. All in all, he is alive, but only just.

He is not sure what to make of this. He hopes that Martens and Seiler did not manage to find his notebook in time, as they have surely looked for it. He wonders if Martens has killed his son yet.

He feels disappointed at that possibility. Martens, self-righteous clod that he is, is hardly likely to appreciate the fine act of murder. _He is not going to enjoy the moment when his son lies gasping for breath and for life on the ground, dying after his own father shoots him down like a hunted deer. _Or perhaps he would stab him. More personal, and also harder, more dangerous.

No, Martens is no connoisseur, and Engel regrets leaving the job up to him. But only to a degree. He imagines Martens' anguish when he finds out the truth. _I think he would throw himself on the mercy of his loving God and kill himself. Or perhaps he will be afraid of death after becoming a murderer? _Engel considered the story of Cain. _His son's blood will cry out from the ground, and he will bear the mark of Cain, the mark of the murderer. _He smiles. _Take a good long look in the mirror, Martens. Your black mark is the same as mine, and isn't that a bitch to finally realize? _

The pale green curtain of his hospital bed parts like the Red Sea, and Martens stands there. It is if the farmer was plucked from Engel's own thoughts to materialize before him, like a figure from a waking dream.

Engel licks his lips. "Well?" he finally croaks. "Come to kill me after all, Martens? Tell me...have you buried your son yet?" He smiles, but even that is an effort.

Martens says nothing. His eyes are hard and cold, and dulled to a blued grey in the morning light.

Engel does not like the look on his face, but he presses on: "Was it hard to do it, Martens, or did you find yourself enjoying it? Perhaps you were even a bit excited...be honest with me..."

Martens' eyes are still cold, but his face is calm. "No."

Engel's heart begins to flutter, and he wonders if it is a side-effect of the detoxification process. He hopes so. "No? No what, Martens? You will not be—"

"—honest with you, after you've lied all along to me?" Martens holds up his hand; in it, there is a bag. He opens the bag, takes out what is inside it.

Engel's heart skips a beat, pounds even faster. It's his notebook. His fucking notebook! _When did Martens—no, no, no— _

Martens holds it up with one hand, flips it open and begins to read like a priest reading the Bible at Mass. He reads Engel's entire entry about his stay in Herzbach. When he is done, his voice is rough, but he looks Engel in the eye and says, "You've failed, Gabriel. My son is alive and exonerated. He didn't kill Lucia Flieder...you did."

He closes the book, lays it beside Engel's bed. "You will live out the rest of your life knowing that you failed. Your last victims escaped you, and I swear, Engel, they will be your last. You'll be watched after this. You will never know another moment without constant surveillance and monitoring. You will never have the opportunity to kill again, and you will live the rest of your life as a broken, sickly convict, confined to a wheelchair and behind bars. Forgotten, eventually, by the rest of the world; alone, uncelebrated, and pathetic."

He turns to go. "And you will never see me again. Goodbye, Herr Engel. Someday I may find the compassion to pray for God's mercy on your behalf."

_God is not merciful, to leave me like this! _Engel wants to scream, but nothing comes out except a pitiful rasp. He croaks incoherently at Martens as the other man walks out, closing the curtain behind him.

**Three: Redemption, Of A Sort **

Coffee and a pastry. He knows the routine by now. He supposes it is a common morning ritual for most, if not all, police officers all over the world. Personally, Engel is tiring of it. The sugar gives him an unpleasant buzz and he has grown to hate the taste of coffee. Still, he drinks the stuff, because what else is there to do?

"You look like death warmed over," young Schmitz tells him. The younger policeman pours himself a cup of coffee and downs it in one go; Schmitz, despite his youth and inexperience, is a past master of the sacred morning ritual and worse still, seems to actually enjoy it.

"I haven't been sleeping well," Engel admits, studying Schmitz with something like envy. The younger man is vital, committed, idealistic in that forceful, naive way that is so grating to one who cannot share in it. Engel considers it a delusion—but it is a comforting delusion, the thought that one can overcome the evil in the world, and occasionally, such as now, he envies Schmitz this.

"Having problems with your girl?" Schmitz says, smiling in that way that makes Engel want to take a straight-razor and carve the smirk off his face, along with that ridiculous wispy mustache. It makes Schmitz look like a stupid teenage boy who's put off shaving for a day or so in order to look more like an adult. Pathetic.

"None of your business, jerk-off." He stares down at his half-empty coffee cup. The smell of the stuff suddenly sickens him and he puts it down.

"Hey, I'm not trying to pry into something that's none of my business," Schmitz replies, holding up his hands in a position of surrender. The smirk is gone. "You've been this way for days—no, _weeks _—and if something's affecting you, I need to know what it is. After all, I'm your partner and your friend. If you need to talk, I know what you're going through as far as girls go...and I'll listen. Just...if you ever need anything..."

_You wouldn't understand, _Engel thinks despondently. Not even his girlfriend understands why he won't let her touch him, why sex—infrequent and unhappy at best, these days—has to be initiated by him, never her. He fears himself, fears being touched, and he hates it. Hates her, on occasions.

He can vividly remember being abused by the older boys of his village. They'd shove him down, get his pants off of him, and rape him without mercy or hesitation. Often they would grasp him by his hair, pulling it out during sex.

The worst part was when they touched him. He was never sure why they did so; certainly it was not to give him pleasure. Perhaps it was merely curiosity as to how their terrified, half-naked, bloodied victim would react to being fondled as they straddled him. Like blowing up a frog or tying cats' tails together, it was an experiment in cruelty that tested for a certain reaction to various stimuli. His first memory of an orgasm was lying in a field, being held down by three or four other boys, his pants tangled around his ankles and his scalp bloodied. He had stared up at the sky, wondering at its vastness, its depth of blue. It seemed to go on forever, and he had tried to concentrate on the sky, tried to disassociate himself from what his body was feeling, but it had not entirely worked. He had always been confused at how something so violent and painful could feel, in a warped way, pleasurable.

"You're a sick little fuck, Gabriel, you little fag," they told him afterwards, getting up and fastening their flies. "See, you enjoyed it. It wasn't so bad, now, was it? You were crying for more, you faggot." They rode away on their bikes, or just walked. He lay there in the field, feeling his heart slowing down, letting the wind sweeping across the grass dry his tears, listening to them laughing about him as they went. For a time until the sky grew dark all he could think about was the blue, blue sky, because it was better than actually feeling the pain between his legs...or what he had felt when they touched him.

That is why he hates being touched. He hates uncontrollable, involuntary pleasure, hates the memory of being touched and responding to it, hates the feelings of shame and pleasure, inexplicably and inseparably intertwined, that the memories provoke. Neither Schmitz nor his girlfriend know this.

"You wouldn't understand." Saying that is easier than telling either of them what had happened.

"Try me."

_"No." _He fixes Schmitz with such a dark glare that the younger man steps back, mutters a quick apology, and does not dare to look him in the face for a while. After a while, Engel asks, "And what of our case? Any leads yet?"

"Actually, yes. We have a suspect. A very strong one. He's already confessed to two murders and is suspected of quite a few more."

Engel blanches. "More?"

"You know how these jerk-offs are; once they start they can't stop. It's like a disease."

"No," Engel murmurs. "There's always a choice." He had that same choice, long ago, and he had turned away from the darkness inside him, the red lust for pleasure gained through pain. Sometimes he feels it return, like the pain of an old wound that is only half-healed, and has to push it away once again, and that is becoming harder and harder to do.

"Engel, I thought this would make you happy. You have more passion for catching these jerk-offs than anyone I've ever seen. We've gotten one of them, so give me a smile!"

Engel forces a weak smile, just to get Schmitz off his back. "I suppose we'll have to interrogate him."

"Yeah, but what're you going to do? Just promise me you won't strangle him like the last one and we're good to go."

"I promise." He got a suspension from duty and an official reprimand for assaulting their last suspect, a fat man who liked sodomizing little girls. Unofficially, Engel had been celebrated around the office and had returned to a hero's welcome. Schmitz had even bought him a cake.

The interrogation goes off without a hitch. The expected blustering and bragging occurs; Engel slices through it like a scalpel, shredding the victim with his words. He enjoys it, this cutting down, reducing the suspect to quivering terror with threats and innuendo. It makes him feel in control.

By lunch they have four more confessions. Schmitz whistles as he looks over the paperwork. "You're good, Engel."

"I know."

They stand in front of an empty cell that will be used to hold their suspect; Engel stares into it. It is so white and pristine; it even _smells _clean, carrying a scent of soap and antiseptic. He grasps the bars, rubs a thumb up the length of one, pulls it a little to test its strength.

Suddenly he receives the strangest impression. What would it be like to stand behind these bars? What would it be like to be the suspect, not the cop? _What would it be like to be the killer, the rapist, and not the one who tries to stop him? _

Would it be more freeing than the life he leads now?

He considers himself as a murderer, answering a policeman with the same arrogance and coldness he used on the suspect today. He knows his own ability with words, his gift for tying someone in knots so tight that the only way they can escape is to cut themselves free with the knife he gives them. But what would it be like to try and confound a policeman? No one else he has seen has his gift for interrogation; he feels confident he could beat them all.

He considers this, considers his memories, considers the occasional flashes of dark insight he has into the minds of the predators he hunts, considers the loathsome and shameful lusts that creep at the edge of his consciousness...and dismisses it. If he has nothing else—no faith, no love, no hope—he at least has his pride, and he has made his choice, set his course and he will damn well follow it, wherever it leads him.

He releases the bar and walks away, following Schmitz down the hall.

_Tonight I will give her flowers. Red roses, those are her favorite. Chocolates, because she likes those, too. We'll go out to dinner and laugh together as we talk of little inconsequential things. I will let her touch me and hold me as we fall asleep together. _Perhaps that would not be so bad.

Perhaps there was hope for him after all.

**The End **


End file.
